Guidelines for Authors

JNSPS welcomes submissions in all areas of Physical Sciences from researchers worldwide. Information on submitting your manuscript is included below. Please contact us via editorial.office@journal.nsps.org.ng if you have any questions about the submission process.

JNSPS Article Types

JNSPS publishes Original Research, Letters, Comments, and Errata/Corregendum. The sections are differentiated by the various reasons for which the articles are intended.  Every paper, except an Erratum/Corregendum, must have an abstract. There is no limit to the length for articles submitted to JNSPS.

Original Research: describe the results of original research of exceptional importance. There is no restriction to number of pages

Letters are intended for findings that are particularly noteworthy and may be communicated in a concise manner. The relevance of the advancement will be determined based on current interest and the significance of the progress in the discipline. Authors can follow up a Letter with a more detailed description in the form of an Original Research paper. Authors should justify the need for publishing in this format in their submission letter because letters receive preferential treatment.

Comments critique or correct works already published in JNSPS by other authors. Each Comment should include an abstract and explicitly specify the paper it pertains to. A Comment must be written in a friendly tone, be relevant, and free of mistakes in order to be considered for publishing. While it is OK to critique the work, it is not acceptable to criticize the writers. Comments should not rehash arguments that have already been made public. These guidelines must also be followed when responding to a comment. The purpose of a Reply is not to simply repeat material from the original paper. On the website, there is a crosslink between a Comment and a Reply.

Corrections: Authors can ask for self-contained mistakes in articles published in the previous issue to be corrected. The Editors must approve the revisions, which will be evaluated for their impact on the correctness of scientific assertions, funding information, and metadata. The correction would only affect the online version of the article. Also, please keep in mind that corrections should only be made to matter that were known at the time the paper was published.

Errata: In the Errata section, you'll find notifications about mistakes or omissions in previously published publications. Other types of documents, in addition to typical Errata, may appear in this area, as indicated below. The original article and the document in the Errata section are interlinked . The correction document's category is specified in its title and in the link to the original article.

Standard Erratum is a note by the original paper's authors that briefly summarizes the correction(s) and, if relevant, any implications for the paper's findings.

A corrigendum is an inaccuracy in a printed document that must be fixed after it has been published.

An Editorial Note is a remark made by the journal concerning the paper that the editors believe should be made known to the article's readers.

Expression of Concern: It alerts the reader to a potential issue in a document. It is used when a concern with the publication has been brought to the Editors' notice and it may takes a longer period to resolve the problem.

Retraction: this is a statement that a study should not be considered scientific literature. This might be due to a variety of factors, including the presentation of erroneous results and the inclusion of previously published results in a substantially similar format. The details of article retracted shall not be deleted from the online journal web-portal to preserve the honesty of the record, but it is given notice of retraction. When writers find significant scientific flaws, retractions are occasionally issued by the authors; in other circumstances, the editors determine that retraction is necessary. In every situation, the retraction explains why such action was taken and who is to blame.

Initial Submissions
JNSPS is format-neutral at initial submission, which means that manuscripts do not need to be formatted according to specific journal guidelines to be considered for review. We do, however, require the following information in order to evaluate your manuscript:

A manuscript file (in any format) including the following:
i. Title page (title, author list, classification, keywords)
ii. Abstract
iii. Significance statement
iv. Main text
v. References
vi. Figures or tables with appropriate legends (may be uploaded separately)
vii. SI files (may be uploaded separately)
viii. Contact and competing interest information for all authors.
ix. Data sharing plans (for all data, documentation, and code used in analysis).
x. Funding information and whether an open access license has been selected.
xi. A list of potential reviewers who are experts in the paper's scientific area. A brief justification for suggested reviewers is welcome, particularly for interdisciplinary papers.

JNSPS will consider manuscripts for review as long as all components listed above are included in the submission. More granular details on manuscript formatting, including guidance on information to include in each section of the file, are included in the Manuscript Formatting Guidelines below.


Revised Submissions
Revised papers must be received within 3 months of the revision decision or they will be treated as new submissions. If you require additional time, please notify JNSPS. In addition to the information provided at initial submission, revised submissions must also include:

a point-by-point response to reviewer comments, and
a tracked-changes version of the revised manuscript.

Revised submissions are encouraged to follow all Manuscript Formatting Guidelines, including the Publication-Ready Source File Guidelines. Please note that multiple revisions are rarely permitted, and there is no guarantee that the paper will be accepted. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding manuscript formatting or the revision process.

Manuscript Formatting Guidelines
Manuscript can be prepared in latex or MS-word but latex is prefered. Please use the templates below to prepare your manuscript for JNSPS https://journal.nsps.org.ng/JNSPS_TEMPLATE.zip. Please contact JNSPS if you have questions about submitting in MS-word and include the manuscript file as an attachment if possible.

Manuscript order
Submitting manuscript sections in the following order will allow us to locate important information more easily and may speed the review process. Number all manuscript pages starting with the title page.

  1. Title page
  2. Abstract
    • Explain to the general reader the major contributions of the article
    • Include no more than 250 words
    • Cite all references in the abstract in full within the abstract itself AND in the text
  3. Significance statement (Direct and Contributed Submissions only)
    • Explain the significance of the research at a level understandable to an undergraduate-educated scientist outside their field of specialty
    • Include no more than 120 words
  4. Main text
    • Introduction
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Materials and methods (describe procedures in sufficient detail so that the work can be repeated)
  5. Acknowledgments and funding sources
    • Spell out all abbreviations
    • Use FundRef to identify the standard name for any funders
    • Do not include dedications
  6. References
  7. Figure legends


Title page

Please include the following information on the title page:

Title Page Element Description

Title

Keep the title brief (< 135 characters), descriptive, and comprehensible to a broad scientific audience. Include the studied organism. Avoid numbers, acronyms, abbreviations, punctuation, and puns. 

Author Line

Include full names of all authors in the order intended for publication.

Use asterisks (*) to designate co-corresponding authors and numbered footnotes to indicate equal contributions.

Author Affiliations

Include, in this order, department/laboratory/section/division, institution, city, state with ZIP code (for US institutions) or country with postal code (for non-US institutions).

Use superscripts to match authors with institutions. Multiple affiliations are allowed. Affiliations where the work was done should be listed. If an author's affiliation has changed since the work was done, the current affiliation should also be listed and noted as such.

Corresponding Author

Include the name, complete address, phone number, and email address of the author(s) to whom correspondence and proofs should be sent.

Note that corresponding authors' email addresses will be published in the article footnotes.

Preprint Servers

If applicable, note if a manuscript was deposited as a preprint, including to which server(s) and the licensing information in regards to the article.

Keywords

Include at least three keywords at submission.


Main text 

Please take note of the following when preparing your manuscript for JNSPS:

  • Do not include statements of novelty or priority. 
  • Avoid laboratory jargon.
  • Use correct chemical names.
  • Specify strains of organisms.
  • Display trade names with an initial capital letter only.
  • Provide names of suppliers of uncommon reagents or instruments.
  • Use Système International units and symbols whenever possible.
  • Only link to websites that are permanent public repositories, such as self-perpetuating online resources funded by government, academia, and industry. Links to an author's personal web page are not acceptable.

Publication-ready Source Files Guidelines
Once your manuscript has been accepted, JNSPS will request publication-ready source files. Please use the following guidelines when preparing these files. Do not make extensive edits; JNSPS only allows minor edits at proofs.

  • Word or LaTeX format
  • No embedded figures, tables, or schemes
  • Equations must be editable; images are not acceptable
  • In-text footnotes should be preceded by a footnote symbol, used in the order *, †, ‡, §, ¶, #, ||,**, ††, ‡‡, §§, ¶¶, ##

LaTeX

  • The JNSPS submission system runs PDFLaTeX (Download the template here https://journal.nsps.org.ng/JNSPS_TEMPLATE.zip). 
  • The JNSPS submissions system treats each LaTex submission as a single directory. Avoid nesting, cross-referencing, and using input commands, as these will cause compilation errors. Do not remove packages that are included in the template.
  • When adding packages to the template, ensure that their commands do not clash with existing packages.

Figures and Tables
Use the \includegraphics command within the main manuscript file and upload each figure source file in the submission system separately using the “Figure” file type. Include tables within the main manuscript .tex file only.

Figures
Supply figures and schemes as high-resolution files whenever possible. Scan image are not accepted

JNSPS strives to ensure articles are accessible for readers throughout the world by offering article PDFs that are easily suitable for downloading in any environment. In order to accommodate size and content, article PDFs are processed to display images at 200 ppi, which will guarantee quality at print size.

Provide all images at final size. While figures may be sized conservatively to save page space, JNSPS reserves the right to make the final decision on figure size in published articles. Submit images in these file formats: PNG or JPG.

Figure legends

  • Include figure legends immediately after referencing the figure in the manuscript. Ensure that figure legends adhere to the following guidelines:
  • For figures with multiple panels, the first sentence of the legend should be a brief overview of the entire figure. Explicitly reference and describe each panel at least once in the figure legend.
  • Include clearly labeled error bars in all graphs and describe them in the figure legend.
  • State whether a number that follows the ± sign is a standard error (SEM) or a standard deviation (SD).
  • When applicable, provide the P value, magnification, or scale bar information.
  • Indicate the number of independent data points (N) represented in a graph in the legend.
  • Ensure that numerical axes on all graphs go to 0, except for log axes.

Tables

  • Ensure that the table is in an editable Word,  or LaTeX format.
  • Include a brief title (above) and footnotes (below) the table.
  • Avoid multipart tables (Table 1A, Table 1B).

References

  • please adhere to JNSPS referencing format.References must be in JNSPS style and numbered in the order they appear in the text. Unpublished abstracts presented at meetings or references to “data not shown” are not permitted. If necessary to reference a retracted article, include an explanation for doing so and cite the retraction notice rather than the original publication.
  • Cite references in numerical order as they appear in text, and include all references cited in the main text in the main manuscript file. Include a separate citation list for references cited in the SI. Tables and figures will be inserted in the text where first cited; number references in these sections accordingly.
  • Include the full title for each cited article. Use Scopus abbreviations of journal titles or use the full journal title for any journals not indexed in Scopus.\
  • If there are more than ten authors, list the first author’s name followed by et al.

Provide volume numbers for journal articles as applicable; provide DOI numbers if volume numbers are not available.

  • Provide date of access for online sources.
  • If an article has been accepted for publication but is not yet published, note in-press status and include a DOI number when possible.

Sample Journal Article Reference:
[10] J. M. Neuhaus, L. Sticher, F. Meins, T. Boller, ``A short C-terminal sequence is necessary and sufficient for the targeting of chitinases to the plant vacuole", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 88 (1991) 10362.

Sample Research datasets Reference

[12] E. van Sebille, M. Doblin, Data from “Drift in ocean currents impacts intergenerational microbial exposure to temperature.” Figshare. Available at https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3178534.v2. Deposited 15 April 2016.

Sample Articles or chapters in books Reference
[14] A. V. S. Hill, HLA associations with malaria in Africa: Some implications for MHC evolution, in Molecular Evolution of the Major Histocompatibility Complex, J. Klein, D. Klein, Eds. Springer, 1991, 403–420.

Preprints
[15] H. Luetkens et al., ``Electronic phase diagram of the LaO1-xFxFeAs superconductor. arXiv [Preprint] (2008)", https://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3533 (accessed 6 November 2020).

Conference proceedings
[7] C. Trepo, “Modelization of the epidemic” in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium on Viral Hepatitis and Liver Disease, H. Alter, J. Maynard, W. Szmuness, Eds. Franklin Institute Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2006, 809–810.

Archived Code
2. C. Reynaud et al., Tomography. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3712368. Deposited 15 July 2020.

Supporting information
SI will be published as provided by the authors; it will not be edited or composed. Supply a single PDF file, combining all text, figures, tables,  and SI references. When preparing SI files, please note the following:

  • The main text of the paper must stand on its own without the SI.
  • SI is referred to in the text and cannot be altered by authors after acceptance.
  • Refer to the SI Appendix in the manuscript at an appropriate point in the text. Number supporting figures and tables starting with A1, A2, etc. References should be cited in numerical order as they appear in the SI; do not cite main-text references in the SI and vice versa.

If you choose to place detailed materials and methods in an SI Appendix, you must provide sufficient detail in the main-text methods to enable a reader to follow the logic of the procedures and results. The main article text also must reference the SI methods.

If a paper is fundamentally a study of a new method or technique, then the methods must be described completely in the main text.